Quote: No, you don't foreknow exactly when, were, and how your children will die. Knowing your children will eventually die as a matter of their physiology is not the same and knowing that one will get hit by a 2006 blue Ford Focus traveling at 37mph going south on 7th Avenue in Pittsburgh PA on December 15'th 2031 at 9:15am EST on a cloudy day. An omniscient god would by definition know the later, not just the former. If your god knows the later will happen, how much freewill does your child have if they cannot avoid that fate?

Not only do you have no imagination, you're a terrible liar and a strawman wrestler...

EK:
Free will does not include the power to forestall our death. That’s called “playing god”. Free will includes and is limited to the manner in which we make the journey. Free will must be modified by the other agents who have free will, god or man.

You cannot stop the Nazi from shooting you, eg, but you can choose whether he shoots you as a protestor or a fellow Nazi who is being purged.

Free will cannot stop YOU from dying. But it can, pardon the pun, “make” you decide how you will LIVE.

Here’s your real problem, by the way:

*In a world where there is only constant, level pleasure, there is boredom

*In a world where there is only pleasure and absence of pleasure, and no suffering, atheists will arise to call the absence of pleasure… suffering… so they can blame god for something

Right, so now you've redefine freewill not as the ability to choose A, B, or C; but instead as the ability to slightly alter the path between point A and B that god has chosen for you. Guess what PJ, that's NOT freewill, that is limited will at best. All you have done is presuppose a murky, not at all well defined demarcation so that you can claim humans have 'freewill' while maintaining your god's control. You are hemming and hawing and making use of special pleading, which is not at all compelling.

*In a world where there is only constant, level pleasure, there is boredom

Once again, your god could have designed us so that we would not get bored under such circumstances. Once again you show a staggering lack of imagination.

*In a world where there is only pleasure and absence of pleasure, and no suffering, atheists will arise to call the absence of pleasure… suffering… so they can blame god for something

If there is still no demonstrable evidence for the supernatural, skeptics would still remain, and they would still be skeptical of the empty claims of those positing the supernatural. They would not be able to use the Problem of Evil against a theistic concept of god, but in a universe without suffering, do you really think your Bible would contain all of the stories of barbarity that it does now? In a universe without suffering, how much sense would the Great Flood make in their context? Once again you show a staggering lack of imagination.

Quote:Where's the problem? "[D]isfigured beyond that of any human being" is a figure of speech, it doesn't imply that the servant is human.
As I've already pointed out, Isaiah always referred to Israel as "servant." The Messiah is never called "servant."

You are joking, OO7?

Isaiah 49:

And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the WOMB to be his SERVANT
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength—
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

So, you now have Israel being formed to bring back Israel to god?

Quote:Look what Jeremiah says - God is addressing Israel here:

"All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased. [...] For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after." (Jer. 30:14, 17)

As for Isaiah 52:15, compare it with this:

"The nations shall see and be confounded at all their might: they shall lay their hand upon their mouth, their ears shall be deaf. They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee. Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in mercy." (Micah 7:16-18)

Note the same phrases and figures of speech.
There is no reason to doubt that Isaiah is talking about the nation of Israel, which according to him, was forsaken and despised by its rivals (God's plan), until its revival, which would astonish Gentile nations and their leaders.

There is a reason to doubt, since I quoted Isaiah 49 and your quotations were written by different authors.

There's more if we want to talk about Jesus being one with Israel, or fulfilling "Israel" (Prince of God) or about other non-nations (humans) benefiting from the same Hebrew phrases.

Quote: Right, so now you've redefine freewill not as the ability to choose A, B, or C; but instead as the ability to slightly alter the path between point A and B that god has chosen for you. Guess what PJ, that's NOT freewill, that is limited will at best. All you have done is presuppose a murky, not at all well defined demarcation so that you can claim humans have 'freewill' while maintaining your god's control. You are hemming and hawing and making use of special pleading, which is not at all compelling.

When did I say or imply god chose your path? I said god chooses to end your life. We aren’t even discussing the same thing. Free will is choosing the path. You can even CHOOSE to go to church tomorrow and stop being an atheist but die tonight. You still had a CHOICE.

You are clearly confusing free will with omnipotence. One is granted to people.

Again, if your atheist friend chooses to shoot you dead, his free will was more assertive.

Quote: *In a world where there is only constant, level pleasure, there is boredom

Once again, your god could have designed us so that we would not get bored under such circumstances. Once again you show a staggering lack of imagination

How so? By proposing such a world when you asked but failed to propose one? Go ahead, tell us all about such a world beyond your god of the gaps.

Quote: *In a world where there is only pleasure and absence of pleasure, and no suffering, atheists will arise to call the absence of pleasure… suffering… so they can blame god for something

If there is still no demonstrable evidence for the supernatural, skeptics would still remain, and they would still be skeptical of the empty claims of those positing the supernatural. They would not be able to use the Problem of Evil against a theistic concept of god, but in a universe without suffering, do you really think your Bible would contain all of the stories of barbarity that it does now? In a universe without suffering, how much sense would the Great Flood make in their context? Once again you show a staggering lack of imagination.

Are you saying an omnipotent being with free will cannot do things outside of natural law? That would be an illogical assertion – And how do you know Jesus was doing unnatural things? Isn’t that what scientists say when they don’t want god in an evolution gap? “We didn’t see X but it looks like X happened and we don’t yet know how X happened?” Why can’t a Christian say, “Jesus did something amazing but we don’t know yet know what mechanism He used?”

*In a world where there is only constant, level pleasure, there is boredom
This is an unprovable assertion. Relevance?

Are you the only person here who doesn’t know the idiom about too much of a good thing? Please tell us all how with only a constant pleasure at a constant level one goes past boredom.

Quote:(Yesterday 02:28 PM)PleaseJesus Wrote: *In a world where there is only pleasure and absence of pleasure, and no suffering, atheists will arise to call the absence of pleasure… suffering… so they can blame god for something

This is an unprovable assertion. Relevance?

In a world with only pleasure and the absence of it, Christians will call the wait “waiting on the Lord” and atheists will call it “suffering”. It’s all about your paradigm and mine.

Quote:PleaseJesus Wrote: Of course, the other two problems you have still are:

1) Love is not mere chemical/biochemical reaction. If it is, I guess you can tell your next partner you're "done" when the magic wears off unless you feel like staying on to be altruistic. Altruism, of course, being a way in which people express LOVE in community.
This is an unprovable assertion. Relevance?

Was that your last marriage proposal? Hi, can we bond because of my pheromone attraction to you so we can have sex with chance of procreation—until the pheromones stop, of course? I really have to prove obvious, self-evident things to you?

Quote:(Yesterday 02:40 PM)PleaseJesus Wrote: 2) You still have the fallacy (despite having a positivist ethic that applauds altruism, which includes communal living/interdependence) of thinking that the closer you are to perfect, the more self-sufficient you are. Maybe in the movies the man can go it alone, Mister Bond, but man is not meant to be alone, Adam needs his Eve, and the people I think are more evolved than you are the Ghandis, the Martin Luther Kings, the people who show their need for others and THE other.

This is an unprovable assertion. Relevance?

Really? I say heroes are other-centered and self-centered people are children in adult bodies. You?